Hello all! Kittie here, I just planted my 2.5 with all kinds of lovely plants for my betta Jacob and noticed a little hitchhiker on one of the leaves. A tiny baby snail, black in color and the only one I've seen so far. Anyway, I used to have a golden mystery snail but he died mysteriously... no pun intended Anyway I want to make sure this baby has at least a chance of survival. So what do you do to care for a tiny snail? Or any snail for that matter... I had my previous snail for months and he seemed to be just fine but then died so I just want to make sure I don't do that again... Jacob hasn't even noticed the baby yet. If he does and starts to pick I'll probably move it to another container. So do I have to do anything special? My water is very hard and my Ph is about 7.8, my kh is about 120 ppm. Is this going to bother the snail? Also I am currently treated Jacob's fin rot with AQ salt... I know snails do not like salt but my other snail didn't seem bothered but I just want to make sure I'm not going to accidently kill anybody! Much appreciated!

You have a pond snail. If you have one, you'll probably have more very soon! You shouldn't have any problem keeping it alive because they seem indestructible and multiply like crazy unless you don't allow uneaten food to stay in the tank. I do only have 2 in my 10 gallon... they don't multiply because there's no extra food. I feed my bettas one pellet at a time. They do eat algae, so it should be fine in your tank if you have some algae. I've heard that if there is no algae they will eat live plants. Sometimes they will eat dying leaves no matter if there's algae or not.
Your betta may eat the snail. My female bettas put a huge dent in my snail overpopulation in my 55 gallon tank. But my male bettas don't eat the ones in my 10 gallon tank.
Pond snails seem to be okay with all kinds of parameters and temperatures. I actually have pond snails that have survived 90 degree weather. I had a plant tank for quarantining plants before putting them in my big tank, and anyway, in that small tank I ended up with tons of pond snails, malaysian trumpet snails, copepods, and these REALLY CREEPY worms that lived in the gravel and would wave around slowly and creepily. They freaked me out so much that I just moved the MTS to my big tank, and took the entire plant tank outside and left it there on my back deck. That was in the spring, so it's been through weather in the 40s all the way up to the upper 90's, and when I looked in there last week there were still about 5 or 6 snails crawling on the glass. I also have not done a water change since I put it out there, obviously, and they're still alive. So they're kind of indestructible.

I'm hoping Jacob doesn't eat him! But if he does oh well... I'll be sad but it won't hurt me too much... I like indestructible though... not that I normally kill my animals and plants but the hardier the better!

I found one last week on a plant I put in. I left him and he started cleaning right away. He was black and now he turned golden. And doubled in size. Once he found the frogs feeding dish he has been eating the shrimp pellets in there for 4 days now!!!

I removed him now, my water got super acidic and I decided to not chance an infestation and to just buy a nice blue mystery snail... I haven't gotten one yet but probably will soon! I love snails though. I didn't kill the pond snail he's just in his own tiny lidded cup with plant scraps and water